A Repairable Phone at a Fair Price - 5047  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: A Repairable Phone at a Fair Price - 5047 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/b6960156-aa12-4757-8f6c-0e3340261de4 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Fairphone 6: Sustainable and Repairable** - The Fairphone 6 offers long battery life with up to 53 hours and repairable components to extend phone lifespan. - Ethical manufacturing and a commitment to updates until 2033 make it a unique sustainable choice. Transcript: Tom Merritt Amsterdam's Fairphone has launched its new phone in two years, the Fairphone Gen 6. You'll see it called the Fairphone 6. The Fairphone people are trying to get away from using the version numbers all the time. They're like, you should keep your phone as long as you want. That's the whole idea with Fairphone. So we're just going to call it the Fairphone. But yes, this is the sixth generation of it. It has a bigger battery. That was a concern with the fifth gen. The sixth has a 4,415 milliamp hour battery that they say should last you up to 53 hours. So if you're bad at math, that's more than two days. And it can charge to 50% in 25 minutes on a 30 watt charger. When and if that battery life degrades, however, of course, it's a Fairphone. So you can swap it out for a new one because the Fairphone is made to be repairable. Everything is put together with screws. Nothing is glued. Has a 6.31 inch 1116 by 2484 OLED screen with 120 hertz refresh rate. And yes, you can replace that screen if you need to. Starts with 256 gigabytes of storage, one of the few components not replaceable since it's on the motherboard, but you can get it up to two terabytes with an SD card in the repairable SD card slot. Has a 50 megapixel main lens with 10x digital zoom and a 13 megapixel ultra wide. The selfie camera is 32 megapixels. And yes, both of those are replaceable. You can also replace the back plate. And they offer you some custom alternatives, like one that has a finger loop built in or one that has a card holder. So you don't have to use a case. And you can replace the flash, the SIM and the SD card slots. Those are both part of the top unit. The ear cup, the speaker, and the USB-C port. The trade-off for all that repairability is that the Fairphone 6 is only IP55 water and dust resistance. You can splash it. You could probably even hit it with a little bit of a jet of water, but don't drop it in water. It runs Android 15 with updates guaranteed until 2033. That's eight years away. Also has a five-year warranty. And a new item on the sixth version is a switch on the side of the phone that'll activate a new software feature called Fairphone Moments, meant to minimize your interface for focus. Still waiting on details on how that works, but it's a minimalist interface. Fairphone 6 is available now for 499 pounds sterling, 599 euros, and it does not sell to the U.S. Directly, but you can get it through a French company called Murena with a de-Googled version of Android called EOS. That'll cost U.S. Folks $899. ([Time 0:02:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4b8389ec-fdad-46be-bd66-30dd7bd8ec58)) - **Reluctance to Switch from iPhone** - Jenn Cutter avoided switching to Android despite her dying iPhone due to ecosystem learning curve. - She's now realizing the benefits of Fairphone's repairability especially for costly iPhone repairs. Transcript: Jenn Cutter I am part of the problem. My iPhone was dying and I didn't even look at other phones because I was like, I don't feel like learning a new ecosystem. I didn't feel like going to Android. I just went to a new phone. And then of course, now I'm reading this. I was like, ah, this repairability is so good because I'm fixing a friend's iPhone with battery issues, another 11. And Apple wants $400, Canadian, and a local shop wants $40. It's a large disparity. I need to vet this local shop. It's like, you know, I've got ([Time 0:05:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bedd4eab-4933-4046-a6ed-b610152265ca)) - **Fairphone’s Ethical Commitment Impact** - Fairphone's ethical sourcing and fair labor practices extend beyond repairability. - Its transparency encourages other companies to disclose phone support timelines and manufacturing ethics. Transcript: Tom Merritt Yeah. And Fairphone, the company makes other things like earbuds and stuff like that as well. They obviously will sell you the replacement parts, but they don't they don't lock you into that. If you can find another usable part that works with it, you can do that. They encourage that. The reason it's called Fairphone, I think, gets lost in all the repairability is that they also vet the makers of all of the parts for their phones to be fair to their employees, to be ethically Sourced, all of that sort of stuff as much as they can. Jenn Cutter Yeah, I think they're actually at least partially responsible for a lot of companies being upfront about how long they'll support a phone. Tom Merritt Yeah, yeah. This is certainly one of the things that people can point to, to say like, hey, long support, environmentally responsibly sourced materials, get it from factories that pay people A living wage, all of that sort of thing, and repairable. So it's a little thicker. This one's lighter than the last one, but it might be a little heavier than another phone you might find at the same price point. But ([Time 0:06:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/99e3a48d-66c3-4a95-8d75-2073254d7355)) - **Windows 10 Free Security Update Insight** - Microsoft offers free Windows 10 security updates for one year if users sync settings to their cloud. - This strategy likely aims to upsell other cloud services rather than pure generosity. Transcript: Jenn Cutter Windows 10 support ends on October 14th, but you can still get security updates for another year for free. You just have to agree to sync your PC settings to Microsoft's cloud using a Microsoft account and the Windows backup app. Normally, this plan called the Extended Security Update or ESU program is $30 per device. Tom Merritt Now, there's probably a bouquet of reasons why they're doing this. The negative-minded will jump to the conclusion that they just want your data. And I'm not going to deny that maybe that's part of it. I'm guessing the majority reason for this is that if you start using Windows Backup and you're using OneDrive, they have a chance to upsell you on other things like Photo Backup and Azure And adding storage and all of that. And they think that that would end up paying for giving it to you for free. They're hoping to upsell you. So if you want to stick it to Microsoft, do this and then refuse to buy anything they try to sell you. Or just pay the $30 per device and don't do it if you're like, I don't trust them to have my data. But it's another option for people who want to keep their Windows 10 machine going a little longer. ([Time 0:10:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7d9eca0c-2c66-4a08-87ca-9bd92fc99ee9)) - **Windows 10 Update Nightmare** - Jenn Cutter experienced a Windows 10 boot loop triggered by an update near end-of-support. - She is considering BIOS reset after an hour of troubleshooting, showing frustrations at legacy system maintenance. Transcript: Jenn Cutter In the exact same boat. I am fighting with my Windows 10 install on my oldest laptop right now because I ran just a normal Windows update. And the campaign manager telling me support is ending popped up in the middle of it right before the reboot for things to work. And I am now an hour like 60 of trying to get it to boot and out of the boot loop that it is currently in. Oh, my gosh. Which is so frustrating. I'm thinking a BIOS trip is happening next for me. I thought I would try to let it finish normally. They say, you know, let it run overnight and it'll sort itself out. And that's not where I'm at. ([Time 0:12:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/39ff2571-1fe2-412d-838f-541390e6001d)) - **Teachers Embrace AI Tools** - About 60% of US K-12 teachers have used AI tools, reporting saving about six hours a week. - AI aids in making teaching materials and spotting improper use by students, though detection tools lag behind. Transcript: Tom Merritt 12th grade used some kind of AI tool in their work over the last year. A larger percentage of high school teachers used those kinds of tools. The teachers who used the tools estimate it saves them about six hours a week. Examples of tasks it saved time on were making worksheets, making assessments, quizzes, administrative work. Some used it to help modify student materials or even help them construct feedback. Several teachers found that when they started to use the tools, they got better at spotting when their students were using the tools. We're going to have a closer look at the downsides of these tools for teachers and students in part two of our interview with Kevin Metcalf that's coming into the feed this weekend. ([Time 0:16:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c83e77bf-17ff-42e4-8e2f-7b97957fbf8c)) - **AI Tools in Language Teaching** - Encourage teachers to use language-specific AI models for better accuracy in immersion programs. - Trying multiple AI tools improves detection and utility in bilingual education settings. Transcript: Tom Merritt Than the detector tools are. Jenn Cutter Yes, absolutely. My friends who are teaching high school, granted, like for the ones who have small enough class sizes, they don't need the tool to know who's using it. But they've been practicing using these tools because they figure it's going to be necessary in the future. But But yeah, I'd say the hit rate is up and down. But also, I love my friends. They're not the most technical people. So I think they're just using one AI. I don't think they're testing through various. I will tell my friends in the French immersion, like, hey, use an actual French one and then they'll notice it better. But also, I don't know how much the grade six kids are using it at this point. Tom Merritt It's probably not that high, but you never know. And there's one called Claude. It has a French name. Try that. Oh, there you go. ([Time 0:18:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/25abde92-d5e1-4ac4-bf1f-76763a2252ca)) - **YouTube Live Streaming Age Rules** - YouTube raises unaccompanied live stream minimum age to 16, requiring adult visible presence for younger streamers. - Streamers should heed the grace period to adjust or risk severe penalties including account termination. Transcript: Tom Merritt To be fair to people who are 15, 16 years old who were live streaming before. Give them a chance to hear about this and take the appropriate actions. I think that's fine. Give them a little grace period to switch over. And after that, then it's like, hey, we're given ample warning. Jenn Cutter Yeah. I think a lot of people kind of miss that terminating account tends to, I don't know if they're switching it for this new rule, terminate your Google account. So you will lose your email, your Google Drive, everything. It is a very, very big deal. So hopefully they're pushing this out in multiple emails to all of the streamers. Like even if I get an email about this, I'm not going to be offended about it. Like just blanket everyone, because at least we can tell cousins and stuff. But the 13 to 16, again, as a person who from 16 to 20 did not look remotely 16 to 20, I feel awful for those people who are going to have to send in photo IDs and driver's licenses to prove, No, I swear, I'm almost an adult. ([Time 0:26:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eef8ec51-1c0d-4726-901b-9ae3d7cbbb50)) - **Bart’s Raindrop Bookmarking Switch** - Bart Busschots switched from Pocket to Raindrop for bookmarking due to Pocket's declining support. - Raindrop offers cross-platform use, flexible categorization, and great share sheet to boost productivity. Transcript: Jenn Cutter Want to consider. Bart Busschots Bart, thanks for joining me, man. My absolute pleasure. It's always good when I happen to do something you want to talk to me about. Well, I heard you talking to Alison about your alternative to Pocket. Tom Merritt And so I thought we could pass that along to people. And of course, they should go listen to NoSilicast if they want to get the full experience. But first of all, let's talk about bookmark managers. What do you use a bookmark manager for? Bart Busschots So the most important use, the use that would really break my productivity, is I do two news-based podcasts. I do a bi-weekly one on cybersecurity, and I do a monthly one on Apple News. So Let's Talk Apple and Security Bits on the NassilaCast. And I read, I'm still one of those people who use an RSS reader. I think that makes me rare in 2025. Tom Merritt Yeah, well, there's two of us together. That may be a majority of them, I'm not sure. Bart Busschots So I read news all the time in the background because you can't possibly do a whole month's worth of news in an afternoon. You can't do that, right? So as the month goes on, I just every day I'm just keeping up with my RSS and I need to capture and somehow categorize stories that are relevant to either or both. And the or both means you actually need quite a powerful tool because one's based off folder structures, then it doesn't work so good. It's like, well, this Apple security news, what do I do? Which meant I used to physically put it into one folder and always try to remember, put it in the one I'm going to record next and then remember to bring it over to the other folder. Was fragile. It was terrible. But anyway, so I wanted better categorization. And then I just clean that folder out as I record the show notes and then I fill it up again and I clean it out and I fill it up again. And that is how I podcast. Do you use it for things besides just the podcasting? Tom Merritt Yes. Bart Busschots So because I use it so much for the podcasting, I started to notice there were lots of other things. We're saying, oh, hang on, this tool here that I'm using anyway, this hammer can hit other things. So a big one for me is sometimes you come across not a new story, but a fantastic description of X. Like, really, what is a passkey? Or advice for people who know nothing about passwords for keeping safe. These kind of generic articles that you just want to have in your pocket, excuse the pun. And then whenever a family member or a non-techie person says, I don't understand, you just go, here, hang on, I'll get you this link. And assuming you've tagged stuff or whatever, you just send them the link. And so I started to collect these for reference is what I call those, right? Things I know I'll want again. And then I started to realise that I could use this for my cooking. So I decided in the pandemic, I was never going to waste food again. It just became clear to me that food is not something we should take for granted and I'm not going to waste it. So the day before shopping day, I have combinations of ingredients I have never cooked before. And I just go Googling for ideas and I will find five and cook one. And I used to just throw the other four away. But now what I've started doing is anything interesting, just stick it in Pocket or, well, it used to be Pocket. And then the next time, instead of going to Google, just go to my archive of stuff I already know I want to try someday and find something that matches the ingredients. Hey presto off we go it's worked out really well and then the other one is I have a husband who is notoriously difficult to buy gifts for and I used to panic every Christmas and now throughout The year I had to just capture gift ideas capture capture and then when it's time for a gift I just go to my folder and I go oh well this choice. Hey, presto. Tom Merritt I may have to steal that last one particularly, as a matter of fact. You know, because Amazon wish lists only take you so far, especially these days. So why did you settle on Raindrop as your alternative to Pocket? Bart Busschots I got fed up of Pocket a year ago. So I have a head start. So I have already been settled into my new home for some time and so i can tell you the water really is nice in here uh because pocket started the smell of i'm dying it's heard the smell of Sinking ship and i decided to be one of the early rats and i started off ahead of everyone else but they can't they killed the mac app and at that point i was like okay these are not my people. This is not my thing. So I tried lots of different ones. And I ended up with one that has a long history. This is not an app that's going to go away, because I briefly ended up on Omnivore, which was really promising and amazing, but it was a young company, and they were bought up a venture Capital, and that was the end of that. I was like, oh, well, sod. I've just done all this work to migrate from pocket to Omnivore and they evaporated. So my second attempt was Raindrop. And I tried everything and I nearly did this self-hosted wallabag because I got so fed up of trusting other people. I thought I might host it myself. I don't want to do that. It's maintenance. Tom Merritt It's work. It's work. Bart Busschots Yeah. And it's one more thing to, yeah, I just didn't want to do that. And eventually someone pointed me at raindrop.io and it's a one person shop, a bit like the Gus Muellers of this world, right? It's a one person, but they've been doing this for ages. And when you read the about page and stuff, you get a sense of this is, this is not a fly by night. This is a person who has made this their way of putting food on the table. They have been doing this for years, and they are quite serious about this. And it's mature. It's not up and coming with great promises. It is built. It has been running for years. It works. And it's completely cross-platform. Windows, Linux, there's a Linux client, the Mac, Android, and a really nice web interface. Now, as Alison hypothesized, it's probably an Electron app. I don't care. It's a really nice app. And it's the most cleverly thought out of them all. So you don't have to choose between the different options for taxonomies. Am I a categories person or am I a tags person? You can have both. We have the concept of collections and we have tags. And when you're searching, you can search for a tag across all of your bookmarks or within your current collection. So I used to have terrible trouble when I needed to cook with apples. Oh, yeah. Right. Whereas now I have a collection for my four problems to be solved. And when I'm writing show notes, I search for tags within the show notes collection and I can tag security and Apple. No problem. I can search within just my collection of useful tips and I can search for Apple related tips. No problem. And I can search just within my recipes for Apple related recipes and I will find only my recipes. So we have all the flexibility of tags and all the flexibility of folders. The share sheet is amazing. Like that is really important. Getting things into a bookmark manager is really important. And some of them started to give you like ([Time 0:27:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d91e64dd-8104-4331-a458-6f279e64ab00)) - **Bookmark Manager Practical Uses** - Use bookmark managers to store reference articles for explaining tech concepts clearly. - Save recipe ideas and gift inspirations to avoid waste and last-minute panic. Transcript: Bart Busschots Who know nothing about passwords for keeping safe. These kind of generic articles that you just want to have in your pocket, excuse the pun. And then whenever a family member or a non-techie person says, I don't understand, you just go, here, hang on, I'll get you this link. And assuming you've tagged stuff or whatever, you just send them the link. And so I started to collect these for reference is what I call those, right? Things I know I'll want again. And then I started to realise that I could use this for my cooking. So I decided in the pandemic, I was never going to waste food again. It just became clear to me that food is not something we should take for granted and I'm not going to waste it. So the day before shopping day, I have combinations of ingredients I have never cooked before. And I just go Googling for ideas and I will find five and cook one. And I used to just throw the other four away. But now what I've started doing is anything interesting, just stick it in Pocket or, well, it used to be Pocket. And then the next time, instead of going to Google, just go to my archive of stuff I already know I want to try someday and find something that matches the ingredients. Hey presto off we go it's worked out really well and then the other one is I have a husband who is notoriously difficult to buy gifts for and I used to panic every Christmas and now throughout The year I had to just capture gift ideas capture capture and then when it's time for a gift I just go to my folder and I go oh well this choice. Hey, presto. ([Time 0:29:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e79026da-2673-4c98-9cba-a6c629c7cc3e))